Copyright lawyers analysis of Andreas Pour's Interpretation
Being concerned with the legality of redistributing KDE linked to QT I
consulted a copyright lawyer about Andreas Pour's interpretation given on this
list. The copyright lawyer has two law degrees and is completing a Master's
degree a component of which comprised copyright law, he has 20 years
experience in the field. (This is in Australian law).
He is technically literate, and is an avid FreeBSD user and active software
developer. He established a BBS in 1983 that later became part of FidoNet and
was in service for a total of 14 years.
He analysed part of Andreas' interpretation for me free of charge. This was
done on an informal basis (during our lunchbreak). Unfortunately I don't feel
like broadcasting his name on the net. I would like to give a list of his
findings. In the following list "he" refers to the copyright lawyer and "he
agreed" means the copyright lawyer agreed with the portion of Andreas Pour's
interpretation being discussed.
Firstly I showed him a copy of the GPL:
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
and then Andreas Pour's interpretation of the GPL:
http://lists.kde.org/?/=kde-licensing&m=94950776505266&w=2
* He agreed the Andreas Pour's preferred interpretation of the phrase "under
the terms of this License" was the one most likely to be used by a Judge
interpreting the GPL.
* He stated that a Judge would not interpret the phrase to mean "all the terms
of this license apply to it".
* He stated that if the phrase was sufficiently uncertain and therefore could
not be enforced (and maybe it is) then the Judge would strike the phrase from
the license and interpret the license with the phrase removed.++
Secondly I showed him Andreas Pour's XFree license comment, which contains a
copy of the Xfree license:
http://lists.kde.org/?/=kde-licensing&m=94950776505271&w=2
* He agreed that software licensees have no inherent right to relicense
software under a more restrictive license.
* He agreed that one could not relicense software under the XFree license+++
under the GPL, as the XFree license prohibits this.
I (Don Sanders) conclude that copyright law supports the premises of Andreas'
interpretation.
Disclaimer: This is not legal advice.
BFN,
Don.
++ I (Don Sanders) don't think such an action would result in the GPL being
interpreted with additional restrictions. Hence I don't think it would
make redistributing KDE linked to QT illegal.
+++ The XFree license allows sublicensing under certain conditions.
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